I admit it: I like powergaming. I am really of the belief that even powergaming has personal influences, so one person's "most powerful" might not match up with someone else's.

After messing around with all of the beginning classes, I personally am dead-set on Scout as being the most powerful, with the perfect places to stop level-upping being 4 or 8. You get a great Saves, BAB, and bonus abilities at these points, without much more by going a level more, but a lot to lose by stopping a level too soon. I like that the class has some cool skills as well, which help even with an 8 INT (but 10 works the best IMHO).

I can't decide on the Jedi class though. I like both the Guardian and the Sentinel. The Guardian's "Jedi Jump" or whatever isn't all that great though, which is what really sets it apart from the Sentinel IMHO. The Sentinel is good also. BTW, I want to be pretty good in melee, so the Consular isn't the best choice for me.

What do you guys think? What's "perfect" for you?

"A life is not important, except in the impact it has on other lives."-- Jackie Robinson

I know that it uses the level squatting, but if you're power gaming, you use everything available to you.

The Guardian gains the Force Jump ability which allows him to move immediately into the crowd. This helps in many ways tactically if you consider lightsabers and grenades. The extra Feats gained are also in favor to strong offensive abilities.

The Sentinel, while gaining some nifty Immunities are not really worthwhile since items and Force Immunity practically grants these. The extra Force Points are quite negligible since they recharge and a battle should (it always does from my exp) end well before you are drained; particularly in the case of the PC, due to a PC only Feat.

The Guardian for combat or the Consular for the Force is the way to go in this game. The Sentinel tries to be a mix, but fails rather miserably...doesn't give the power of picking one and going with it.

This changes in the second game though, with the Sentinel being, in my opinion, by far the most powerful of the classes.

You're right about there being different views on what is the most powerful class combination. When I saw this thread, I thought of two different builds that are powerful in their own right. I had 2 that came to mind.

A scoundrel/guardian has the right of being the most physically offensive combination in the game. The scoundrel's sneak attack adds a huge damage bonus. The scoundrel also starts with the critical strike feature, which is the most damaging feature attack, but only if you focus on strength because it adds damage based on a percentage. The guardian class adds further damage to this build. It allows you to get the lightsaber specialization feature that only guardians can get. Force Jump is pretty useful as well. It adds damage to your initial attack and allows you to meet a target before they can get a shot/grenade/force power off on you. You will be able to kill some enemies in your initial force jump attack.

In another light, the scout/consular combination is also powerful, but not physically. The consular class can deal lots of damage using the force. The scout class adds saving throws and features that help protect the consular from grenades and force powers so he can throw lightning at his enemies.

In contrast, the soldier/sentinel combination is probably the most defensive. If you focus on increasing his dexterity and constution, and equip him with items to increase his saving throws, and use force powers like Force Armor and Master Valor, he can be nearly impossible to kill and can just walk through the game like a tank.

I do believe the guardian is the most powerfull class in the game. You can still progress your forcepowers and just take the ones really necessary. With that the lightsaber advantages they get and force jump you can really make a killer class. However, I personnaly found the guardian a bit boring and less impressive as a consular. All classes have their advantages ofcourse, but a guardian is IMO the way to go, the way to go TO POWER!!!!

"Hurrah for anarchy! This is the happiest moment of my life." [SIZE="3"][SIZE="1"]George Engel, just before he got hanged[/size][/size]

Klorox wrote:Amazing. This was my original concept for a character. I'm curious as to how you built this character (stats, skills, feats, force powers, ect.). I'd like to compare ideas.TIA

Stats:
I like well rounded so I actually stopped at 14 for Dex, Wis, Cha, on my actual run; but I suppose 18 Dex is workable since 8 Int is perfectly playable. Str and Con are not all that important in the grand scheme of things to me. I like to start with even values as they are more cost effective that way.
As I level, I put (Spoilered): [SPOILER]+1 in Strength, +1 in Wis, and +3 to Dex. Puposefully leaving them odd for max benefits from items and being a Paragon Lightside Guardian.[/SPOILER]

Skill:
Persuasion, Computers/Repair. Skills are useless if not kept maxed where possible, but I did not want to bank skill points across levels on the run. Otherwise, you can keep 2 skills pretty much maxed by banking all leftover the Scout points into Guardian levels to use.

Feats:
4 Scout levels gives you a good base save and Implant Level 2. This is good, and I picked up Implant 3 later in the game to make use of some powerful implants you can obtain. Eg (spoilered): [SPOILER]I'm referring to one Dex +5 Implant that combines well with one +3 Dex Gloves for a nice +8 Dex; that's +4 bonus (halfway to the max Dex of a robe). Others might prefer crit immunity, but I've never found the odd crit giving too much problem in practice. Note also I believe that hitting better (hitting more means more damage = less dangerous foes. Dead foes are much less dangerous than live ones) and higher Defense (getting hit less = greater survivability and also less confirmed crit threats; I believe all crits are threats and an invisible hit must be made to confirm the double damage actually scored); all work in your favor. [/SPOILER]

I was Aiming for a two weapon on this one so I had maxed out Two Weapons fest as soon as possible and chosen Flurry and Toughness trees as complements. This was before I had read the comparsion between Flurry and Power Attack. It appears the latter is more powerful and would be a good option to consider over Flurry. But Flurry is reachable around early-mid level, while a Power Attack would likely still cause quite a number of misses from the lower Scout attack bonuses and not-as-yet really high Dex bonuses... until later into the game where your character becomes insanely potent.

Most other feats are not really necessary since you only need one fighting style choice (Duel/Two Weapons) and one attack option (Flurry/Power). Other feats are

Powers:
I was going Lightside so: Master Speed, Force Immunity, Breach, Heal, Force Wave (cool) or Stun (not so cool, but cheaper)... Destroy Droid would be bonus to have, but makes the game far too simple beyond what I consider already easy even at Difficult setting.

The others are not really necessary at all since the armor bonus, stat bonus and energy resistances lasts far too short a duration and time needed to cast them means you will not be using all of them at any one time. If needed to choose.. well, pretty no brainer options.

Standard tactic would be to Speed up and Immunize, Jump in for a first kill, Wave and then sweep the floor. Heal up as needed. Rinse. Repeat. You should be able to solo the final chapter on difficult setting blitzing through the levels only slow enough to you can kill everything that tries to stand in way with as much problems only as having to recast buffs every so often.

If you're going Darkside, I suppose Death Field and Insanity replaces Heal and Force Wave respectively... with the later a matter of preference. You might want to pick up Storm as well for quick annihilation of those pesky droids (you have a harder time healing for free now).

Saber (Spoilered):
[SPOILER]Guardian... so Guardian's Heart; and Lightsider already have an uber gay crystal that screams "you're crazy not to use me".

Physical damage is also really cool.

Saberstaves are not good for Keen/Crits, they work much better on normal sabers.. but I have a (as yet unproven) belief on opponent's ability to be immune to crits just like you can.
[/SPOILER]

Jedi Consular is very strong in the force and has balanced abilities.Jedi Sentinel is best for close up combat with Lightsaber/sword.Jedi Guardian is the simplest Jedi, using weaker force powers and using slightly stronger Lightsaber powers than the Consular.My opinion: Scout lvl 7/ Consular lvl 13.My opinion is for full on lightsaber combat: Soldier lvl 10/ Jedi sentinel lvl 10.For stealthy force: Scoundrel lvl 14/ Jedi Guardian lvl 6.Hope this helps!

Oquin & Terian wrote:Jedi Consular is very strong in the force and has balanced abilities.Jedi Sentinel is best for close up combat with Lightsaber/sword.Jedi Guardian is the simplest Jedi, using weaker force powers and using slightly stronger Lightsaber powers than the Consular.My opinion: Scout lvl 7/ Consular lvl 13.My opinion is for full on lightsaber combat: Soldier lvl 10/ Jedi sentinel lvl 10.For stealthy force: Scoundrel lvl 14/ Jedi Guardian lvl 6.Hope this helps!

I think you got Guardian and Sentinel mixed up, mate.Guardian is the "combat" class and Sentinel is the "balanced" class.

Go all offensive (max Strength, Dualweapon, Force Speed, Lightsaber spec) and any opponent will be dead in 2 rounds.

If this game was designed differently, one could easily think of situations when an all offensive Guardian would be in trouble (no defense whatsoever), but as it is, you can just Forcewave or Stasis the opponents with Jolee Bindo and/or Bastila and then hack them away very quickly, and solo you're simply a powerhorse, since there is never a situation when you have to face masses of lower attackers.

Consolar is only good if you most extremely max them out. Otherwise some opponents will be basically immune to the force, and then you're in big trouble. Especially you will need to go lightside for +3 Cha and a whooping +10 Wis from items for that urgently needed extra bump in power. All in all, its slower killing with Consolars. Their best attacks are all darkside, so basically they keep forcewaving all the time instead, and only forcechoke really tough opponents.

My personal favourite build is Scout 4/Guardian 16, as this opens Repair & Computer as class skills, IIRC, gives (Improved) Flurry as a bonus feat (the best combat feat-chain in the game) and also gives (Improved) Implant. It also gives a boost to saves. Apart from that, the usual Guardian stuff: Force Speed, Dualwield, High STR.You could also go Scout 2/Guardian 18, but the gains are marginal, considering you're losing two feats which are near-mandatory.

Oquin & Terian wrote:Weird! I could level up My Jedi or my Conventional class.Sigh... I allways mess up my game...

Hmmmmmmmm.

I only played when the game came out, but I should have definitely noticed that if you could do that in the original game ?!? After all, I tried really hard to reach Scoundrel9/Guardian for another 1d6 Sneak Attack ... no such luck ! :-( Just not enough XP ... ! :-(

So my bet is on mods / fan patches.

GawainBS wrote:My personal favourite build is Scout 4/Guardian 16, as this opens Repair & Computer as class skills, IIRC, gives (Improved) Flurry as a bonus feat (the best combat feat-chain in the game) and also gives (Improved) Implant. It also gives a boost to saves.

Yeah, its nice stuff. In my first two walkthroughs I went the defensive route and choose Scout4/Sentinel16 with Flurry. Taris quickly became a pain (not as painful as Scoundrel2/Consolar later though) and the final battle was epic and lasted a quarter hour or some such.

But it turns out that horribly weak characters, compared to what I had in the end. Scoundrel7/Guardian with max Strength, Dualwield, Speed, Power Attack just rocks throughout, since everything dies in 2 rounds. And the final battle is simply trivial.

About Flurry vs Power Attack: if you max Strength, you hit anything always, even if you get a -5 penalty from Power Attack (vs -1 from Master Flurry).

So what you need to beat Power Attack with Flurry would be 40 damage per attack. I never managed to reach that, even with the best of the best gear. The only way it worked was with Sneak Attacks when the opponent was disabled (4d6 Sneak Attack = 14 more damage on average per attack, so 40 per attack could be reachable, after all).